Why We're Having to End Our Direct Peering Relationship with Deutsche Telekom

20 pointsposted 7 hours ago
by omnibrain
(about.fb.com)

24 Comments

rich_sasha

5 hours ago

What is the actual dispute? I can't isolate it out from the whine of Meta saying DT are baddies (which maybe they are but I can't find where they say that).

lutoma

5 hours ago

I don't know about this specific case but Deutsche Telekom has a history of highly shady behavior when it comes to peering (or lack thereof). Things like intentionally running ports at public exchanges below capacity so they're always congested and then attempting to bully content providers into paying outrageous sums for peering (even though that traffic is already paid for by their customers, so really they're just trying to double dip. Peering is usually a mutually beneficial affair with no exchange of money).

For a very long time, there were substantial issues with getting traffic from Hetzner to Deutsche Telekom for similar reasons. At the time, when you rented a server at Hetzner you could actually pay extra to get 'premium' routing to Deutsche Telekom though Core Backbone (AS33891), which did make the ransom payments (unlike Hetzner itself).

They were also hard at work undermining net neutrality for a while by zero-rating some companies on their mobile network until they were stopped by courts.

I'm not sure what's going on in this specific case, but I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

bilekas

5 hours ago

It's not clear from this statement, but it sounds like FB are alleging that DT are limiting access to FB apps and services to clients who are DT customers because FB are not paying DT ?

This would go against Net neutrality principles but I don't see any facts which support those claims by FB. So it's not clear what this is all about when it seems it broke down during contract renegotians.

This seems dubious though given the German market is extremely well regulated. Also I've never heard of a provider requesting payments for delivering externally hosted services. Maybe some special cases might exists for things like Netflix bandwidth tunnels with ISP's but that's usually a request from the service provider to have special traffic lanes.

Edit : DT customers are being limited.

rsingel

an hour ago

It's not dubious. That's exactly what DT has been doing for a long time. DT is partly owned by the German government, which might explain why it's been allowed to be a bully.

It ran this same shakedown routine on an academic network in the middle of the pandemic.

It's run this against Hetzner.

It's the same playbook that Comcast/Verizon/Time Warner used vs Netflix/Cogent/League of Legends in 2014.

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2024/09/a-deutsche-teleko..."

dathinab

5 hours ago

they don't really say, they just say direct peering important, telecom bad, should not affect customers with a lot of words

sshine

5 hours ago

tl;dr:

Meta is ending its direct peering relationship with Deutsche Telekom due to the company's actions that undermine net neutrality and put the open internet at risk.

Deutsche Telekom is using its market power to potentially restrict its subscribers' access to internet services that do not pay the company additional fees, creating a de facto paywall.

Importantly: This is Facebook complaining, hoping to pressure Deutche Telekom through public humiliation. They have peering agreements elsewhere where strict access to Facebook without open Internet access is allowed. So if shutting down open Internet access benefits Facebook, they're happy.

mananaysiempre

5 hours ago

Still not clear what’s actually happening.

1. DT no longer peers with Facebook for free, and Facebook isn’t willing to pay? A bit more latency for Facebook users using DT, probably a small drop in Facebook visits from DT due to that, but overall, big whoop.

2. That + DT throttles Facebook traffic aggressively in retaliation? That would count as “undermining net neutrality principles” and bad in general. But it’s the kind of thing that already happens in a lot of places generally speaking (don’t know about Germany specifically), and we should push telecom and/or antitrust regulators to prohibit it, but I’d say there’s no urgency here.

3. That + DT sells customers some sort of “Internet except without Facebook, pay more to get Facebook” or “Internet except with slow Facebook, pay more to get fast Facebook”? That would officially be a Very Bad Thing, worth boycotts and other kinds of shouting from the rooftops.

The post is very very unclear about what’s actually happened. The actual court decision is about something like 1, but the talk of a “de facto paywall” would imply 3. Overall, I feel trampled by a Gish-galloping cavalry regiment here.

rsingel

an hour ago

DT tries to make everyone that peers pay them. Facebook used to pay the ransom, then decided to stop. Now its going to move to a transit connection.

The problem is DT keeps its transit routes congested or artificially limits how much traffic a transit provider can deliver.

So now when FB moves to transit, will DT widen those connections or will it keep them narrow to try to make Facebook's applications get terrible enough performance that Facebook will pay DT.

It's a showdown. DT wants to get paid twice for the same service, once by its subscribers and once by every app and website on the planet.

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2024/09/a-deutsche-teleko..."

stop50

6 hours ago

The Deutsche Telekom didn't force Meta to use the private interconnecT. They kept it open after meta wanted 40% off the previous price and the talks broke up.

mananaysiempre

5 hours ago

TFA manages to say everything except what actually happened and why it’s this particular peering negotiation they decided to whine about. (Settlement-free peering is cutthroat at the best of times, as best as I can understand from the outside, so it is unclear why this is even news.) So could you elaborate on the actual history here?

alias_neo

5 hours ago

"but given the court ruling concerning the unprecedented and unacceptable fees demanded"

Sounds like Meta threw its toys out of the pram because German courts didn't bow to their demands. I'd love to hear more details on the "real" story, and not Meta's PR bullshit.

hs86

3 hours ago

Is this an issue with all networks that have a "restrictive" peering policy, as shown in [0], or is Deutsche Telekom particularly problematic in this case?

[0] https://www.peeringdb.com/net/196

nottorp

5 hours ago

They say nothing specific about the why, just random vague threats to "europeans".

I believe they forgot to mention "innovation" though?

shakna

5 hours ago

Wouldn't a hit piece like this run afoul of most courts? There's a reason that talks after a ruling are so clipped.

highcountess

5 hours ago

This whole release reads like manipulative propaganda. All the emotive language, front loading/priming with a widely accepted idea among the consumer of the information, framing the title in victimization terms, “Takeaway” in a Propaganda Relations release, meaning “here is what we hope you will believe unflinchingly”, etc. It’s all there.

anilakar

4 hours ago

> Takeaways: As a result of a recent German court ruling

Ten words. That's as far as anti-EU techbros will read before jumping to conclusions.

kkfx

4 hours ago

Another proof we need a less concentrated internet to few hubs. These hubs are harmful as harmful is the need of telco for violating net neutrality to serve such hubs well enough.

They have both reasons and they are both wrong.